personally, i can kind of see both sides of the coin here.

as a staffer, i like having higher character creation and/or activity requirements since it's obviously going to minimize some of my workload (which is v important to me, as the staffer who typically takes the lion's share of the work on anything i'm staffing) by theoretically lowering the amount of apps i'm reviewing with at one time, the amount of accounts i'm having to sort through to do activity checks, and opportunities for potential stagnation from people being minimally active.

as a member, i like having lower character creation and/or activity requirements since it minimizes the potential penalty i'd have for making a character in a niche that's harder to plot with (especially if it's one that would likely otherwise just be npc'd) or whose thread partners might not consistently reply for me to make checks (insert the josh peck meme for "i do not control the speed at which other people reply to me") or the pressure to make threads just for the sake of hitting that arbitrary post count so i can do my next app.

honestly, i actually wish it was something admins did make more judgment calls about, since uh. it'd be nice to see requirements get lowered/waived for having want ads filled or during slower periods (since imo 5 posts is gonna be a heck of a lot harder if the site is in a slow period compared to when it be bopping) and for requirements to get raised/capped for staff busy periods (so no one has to wait around for a mega long time just to get their app reviewed) or mega active periods or to slow someone's roll.



but also re: faceclaim sharing, i actually really really wish more sites would do it. i mean. the community is so much smaller than it used to be, and at this point, it just feels so arbitrary to shrink that potential even more just because of a faceclaim being taken (since yeah, sure, there are lookalike fcs, but it's mega annoying to have to go dig through to find those alts sometimes and a lot of the time you won't be dealing with the same availability or quality to the art or the same vibe or details to the new face). plus like. it'd get rid of all the fc pettiness i've seen go on behind closed doors (since uh, yep, i've definitely seen groups ice out people or throw mini-tantrums in private simply because they both wanted to use the same fc + one person got there first) since imo it's not like you'd have to acknowledge it, just look away from someone else doing it.

though also, as someone who's been going back and using all those old popular fcs, it's been mega funny to just be able to casually fc, idk, izaya and kirito and ookurikawa and so on and have like no competition anymore because everyone's moved on to other series lol-